Opportunities of Immobilized Homogeneous Metathesis Complexes as Prominent Heterogeneous Catalysts

© 2016 Wiley-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim A plethora of strategies for immobilizing well-defined metathesis catalysts on solid supports have been developed over the past decades. Whereas most reviews on classical heterogeneous metathesis catalyst designs mainly discuss covalent binding approaches, we here extended this topic with non-covalent surface science methods, a research area that gained interest recently. Within this context, the main focus was set on the immobilization of ruthenium alkylidenes or so-called Grubbs complexes, as these catalysts are known for their high activity, stability and commercial viability. Besides giving an overview of different immobilization strategies, the wide diversity of supported Grubbs catalysts also allows for discussing implications of attaching Grubbs catalysts that go beyond the traditional benefits of heterogeneous catalysis, such as easy catalyst separation. More specifically, this Review will summarize several unique opportunities of immobilized homogeneous catalysts in liquid-phase metathesis transformations in terms of impact on activity, stability, and product selectivity, as to highlight the economic potential, but without ignoring possible shortcomings and limitations.status: publishe